The ancient capital Beijing and the southern commerce and industrial hub of Guangzhou grew nearly as rapidly.
In the new Discovery Channel documentary, Koppel travels to the border of Iran's border with Iraq, the ancient capital of Isfahan, the holy city of Qom and the Persian Gulf.
Set in the dense forests of the Kii Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean, three sacred sites - Yoshino and Omine, Kumano Sanzan, Koyasan - linked by pilgrimage routes to the ancient capital cities of Nara and Kyoto, reflect the fusion of Shinto, rooted in the ancient tradition of nature worship in Japan, and Buddhism, which was introduced from China and the Korean Peninsula.
Getting Bangkok under my belt would have given me the opportunity to take a shore excursion to Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, when we were in Bangkok, and the chance to knock Hanoi (and the Colonial-era Metropole Hotel) off my bucket list.
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One of the oldest cities in the world, Athens is the capital of Ancient and modern Greece and is considered the birthplace of Western civilisation.
Start off high and cool in the city of Cuzco (UNESCO World Heritage Site), former capital of the ancient Inca Empire and today the undisputed archaeological king of the Americas.
The gateway to the hill country is Kandy, the capital of an ancient Sri Lankan kingdom that, thanks to its strategic elevated position, held off 16th-century European invaders for several hundred years longer than the rest of the island.
To explore Hvar's unsung highlights, take the car ferry from Split, Dalmatia's capital, to the ancient town of Stari Grad on Hvar's western coast.
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Mr Karimov calls Osh, an ancient town in Kirgizstan, the capital of Wahhabism and has repeatedly spoken against the extremism of the Taliban, whose army has conquered most of neighbouring Afghanistan.
How, though, can all this modernisation be squared with the maintenance of what every senior official says is the capital's great quality, its function as the ancient vessel of Chinese history and culture?
Central Asia has been a geostrategic crossroads of people, capital and ideas since the first Han dynasty caravans traveled the ancient Silk Road.
And the Moorish Ummayad dynasty in Spain, made the city of Cordoba its capital, and installed an immense mosque on the site of an ancient Christian church there.
At issue is the Palestinians' claim on east Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state and the Israelis' insistence that the ancient city remain undivided and in Israeli hands forever.
The same combination of private capital with environmentalists has already worked for some British salmon rivers, where the ancient rights of net fishermen have been bought out.
The capital, Bangkok, combines the modern skyscrapers of a bustling Asian metropolis with the ancient temples and monuments of previous Thai civilizations, dating back hundreds of years.
Petra is an ancient city that was sculpted out of sandstone cliffs in the southern deserts of Jordan to become the capital of the Nabataeans.
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